Maat's Feather - Recent Comments

Some Thoughts about Reparations

LVTfan — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:18:14 GMT

I've gone through some of the thought processes you've described, and want to share my thoughts about reparations. Here's the really short version, which I'll expand on.

Were we to summon the political will and all that it would take to decide to do reparations, I predict that the effects of doing so, under our current way of doing things, would be that 20 years down the road, not all that many of the children of those who received reparations would be in college or have graduated from college than would have otherwise been in college, BUT that a lot more of the children of those who at the time the reparations were distributed were the owners of well-located pieces of land WOULD be college educated and perhaps without debt.

As we conduct ourselves right now, the ultimate beneficiary of nearly any public spending or healthy economy is the fellow who owns a good piece of land. His land rises in value, whether he has put a building on it or not. Every one of us needs land, whether it be for a place to work or a place to live, or both. Most of us work on land far more valuable than the land we can afford to live on. If we don't own a piece of land, we must pay someone who does for the right to a bit of it. Even if we legally have title to the land, we may, for 30 years, be paying off the last fellow who owned that piece of land -- and we're usually paying him a lot more than he paid for it some years earlier. But he didn't make that land valuable -- the community did! But we pay him, as if he had created the value, and are then indentured to the mortgage lender for decades to reimburse the purchase price. We can choose which master -- lender -- we pay, and we may be able to get a slightly better interest rate, but we are indentured nonetheless.

Let's say that we come around to agreeing that every individual in America who can prove that they descended from at least one person enslaved in this country is entitled to, say, $100,000. The $100,000 checks are distributed. (We'll put aside the question of how they are financed.) What happens next?

That $100,000 gives to each recipient major spending power. Overnight, the price of housing will rise. People who have been vaguely thinking about moving will put their homes on the market, and start looking at where else they'd like to live. People with housing to rent will spruce it up and put it on the market. People with some extra land available will decide that their ship has come in, and offer it up for sale. But none of the asking prices will be at the levels that prevailed before the reparations were agreed to. The prices will rise to take into account the awesome spending power that the $100,000 checks provide.

Who will benefit? Not the recipients of the checks. Their cost of living will have risen. Not their age-mates and neighbors who rent and didn't receive checks. They will be spending a lot more of their income just to house themselves in this market, and will likely be bitter. All the young people who still need to find housing before they have children will find themselves in a very sad holding pattern.

The beneficiaries will be those with land to sell. Twenty years after the checks are issued, no larger a share of those who received checks will be in college or through college. But those who already owned land, and their children, will be the big winners.

HOW DO WE FIX THIS, so that reparations would be a windfall for all? By changing what we tax. If we placed our main taxation on land value -- not houses, not buildings, not pools or other improvements, just land value -- and taxed heavily the annual value of our land, we-the-people -- all of us, whether recipient or not -- woungld benefit from this.

The story is similar re: women's large-scale entry into the workforce in the 1970s. Suddenly these one-income families became two-income families, with a lot more money to spend on housing. This forced others into the workplace who might have chosen to stay home with their children while kids were young; they no longer had as much choice, if they wanted to be able to afford homes in good school districts. (It also served to bring wages down, but that's another story.) It also doomed a lot of single-parent families to districts with inferior schools; a single income just isn't enough to afford a toehold in a good school district.

There's nothing new about this. Winston Churchill described it in a series of 1909 speeches. (See http://www.wealthandwant.com/d...

I've digressed, but the topic is more closely related to Mr. Blackmon's topic than might immediately be obvious. We continue to perpetuate a form of slavery today. Our country's wealth is concentrated into the portfolios of the top 1% of us -- they have 33% of the wealth -- and the next 4%, who have another 24% of the wealth. And the people who control 1% of the wealth get a pretty big share of our reported income -- about 14%, as do the folks who control that next 4% of wealth. The rest of us spend large percentages of our income on housing ourselves - and I'm not talking about McMansions; most of the cost, at least in the major metro areas along our coasts, is payment for the land value, not the building.

Explore http://www.answersanswers.com/ for more about these ideas, or http://www.wealthandwant.com/.

Indeed I have been

Shanikka — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:22:16 GMT

I could spend hours talking about why -- at least some of it is loss of voice, for now, as I contemplate so many things in the future and feel that at this time in Black history they would be utterly unappreciated as expressed sentiments, but some is simply an overwhelming work load.

Yet that is why I left folks like you, and Lilian and others, with front page rights. Since this was never intended to be just my soapbox, but a forum where folks could discuss.

I'll be back when I can.

In the interim, I have read this brilliant piece twice over the past three days and I reiterate what I have always said: you get it.

Peace.

shanikka, you are an absentee landlord!

Maryscott O'Connor — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:38:27 GMT

br>
Ah, well. Figured it was appropriate.

Some of the linked comments

spit — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:10:22 GMT

are... well, I wish they were more jaw-dropping. They're something.

I guess these shootings will always be "justified" in the minds of many so long as essentially "I got nervous" is seen as a perfectly acceptable reason for a cop to fill any Black man with bullets.

I wish I understood how to get more people to really, honestly understand that it's a piece of privilege to feel that the police are there to provide protection for you instead of from you. That's what those comments make me think.

God damn. "Not believable".

Another thing

Rosebuddear — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:22:08 GMT

Lord, I really DO need an editor haha..........your friends that tell you you enjoy stirring up racial shit................well hahah, you certainly stirred up enough of it when you challenged my diary at Kos, and then brought it over here, but you know what? you did good. Certainly it got me thinking about things I had NEVER thought about before. And I'm here. I used to, in the old days, passionately post at a lot of places all around the Web. Lord help me if any of my friends or coworkers ever discover I am "Rosebuddear" and google that haha.

These days I only occasionally comment at Kos, and this is one of the only places I ever bother to come comment. Because I think, despite the fact that your site doesn't get much traffic (it really does suffer from inattention by your good self), that you have something significant to say.

My problem with it all is that I believe that anybody that tries to mess with the status quo in any significant way will either get bought out, threatened, or whacked. I think the best that Democrats can hope to do is nibble at the corporate structure, and maybe convince the powers that be to accept some regulation and a little increased taxation for the common good. We are approaching the point where even the corporations are starting to realize that, if you impoverish enough of the American people, you will destroy your customer base. People without jobs cannot buy your products. I think that harsh truth will ultimately save us. I don't think anything either Hillary or Obama is saying will. Although I fervently hope that one of them becomes President, and I will work VERY hard to see to it that whichever of them gets the nomination does.

Neither Hillary or Obama will end the War. I don't think they even can. That bastard Cheney set in motion something that cannot be taken back. All Corporations want that war to continue, and it will. For 100 years, as Grandpa McCain said. It just makes me ill..............when they talk about the fact that Iraq is "calmer" now.........well yeah, violence is less because the genocide is complete. All the young males are either dead or have fled the country.

It cracks me up when people talk about "rebuilding" Iraq. We did nothing of the kind. We bombed that country to rubble and destroyed it. And all that money that was sent there in ton lots was NOT put into rebuilding Iraq, but was put into building luxurious fortress-like permanent military bases. And Bush and Cheney would just love to do the same thing to Iran. People that think they are upset that Iraq was not a cakewalk just aren't paying attention. They LOVE suicide bombings and insurgency. It gives them a reason to go on the TV and bloviate about "Terror".

I LOVE your George Bush "days left in office" countdown. It can't come soon enough for me. One of the things I hate the most about these bastards is that, at my age, they have caused me to wish away years of my precious life, in order to see them out of power.

Wow............I think you are wrong and also right

Rosebuddear — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:47:03 GMT

Don't discount the Bartcop Effect upon progressives in general, especially white Progressives. I myself voted for Hillary in the caucuses because of it. He is very passionate and makes a very good case for Hillary being a Street Fighter, which I'm sorry to say, at this point, I think Obama is not. He makes stirring Kennedyesque speeches which sort of curdle like sour milk to this old white curmudgeon female. I hate being INSPIRED. I don't want to be INSPIRED WITH HOPE. I want somebody to give me numbers and math and down and dirty policy positions, and I want them to do it in a low-key, not market-tested way.

I realize Hillary doesn't do that either lol. And I also realize that I probably have a little sour bile in my mouth from standing behind (out in the cold) the totally granola, long-gray-haired, aging hippie white woman that was standing in front of me in line for an hour at the caucus place, pontificating on the African American Experience. Bleh.

I also know that Hillary is a dirty fighter at this point, (re Superdelegate stuff) which has caused me to rethink my vote. Well, or maybe not. Because we are going to have to have a dirty fighter in place to take on the Republicans, in my opinion. And that Republican Convention this fall is going to take place in My Town. Yuck.

I lived in Chicago for ten years in the 80s and a little bit of the 90s. I LOVED Harold Washington, I thought he was the greatest Mayor of Chicago, EVER, and when he died of that heart attack, I actually cried. Since then, Chicago I think has sort of reverted to machine politics, and I wonder how much Obama was infected by that. His positions on Social Security (he's caving to the CW that it needs to be gutted) and his anti-gay bigotry sort of bother me. But I still think there is hope for him.

I know I told you my sister voted for Hillary because of racism and believe me, I know that you have no reason to believe I didn't either. But I didn't. I am still damn torn. I just hope Hillary and Obama don't tear each other apart, and in doing so, destroy the best chance the Democratic Party has to take it back from these bastards that are ruining the country.

Re what I said in my diary about finding dog whistle code in every crime thriller I read. I'm still finding it. Gad.

Latest Jonathan Kellerman novel: white hero's girlfriend has been killed by a serial killer and so has a black woman named Tyrene Mazursky (once married to a Polish guy, five children, nominal Chicago setting). The hero is brooding over the fact that "this killer has reduced my beloved Jocelyn to joining the same sisterhood as Tyrene Mazursky". Meaning, my whitebread girlfriend, who is WORTHY, now belongs to the same sisterhood of serial killer victims as this black woman, who is NOT worthy.

And Jonathan Kellerman has a creepy history of bigotry against Muslims, in his books. I mean I appreciate that he's Jewish and all, and I appreciate that he's outraged about all that, but still...........

I'm getting it. Slowly but surely. I am.

Good Lord, you need an editor dear. And so do I. We both do go on. Hahaha.

Yours,
Rose

Oh puh-lease, Shanikka,

lilith — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:53:45 GMT

What is it, 50 words or so? Go ahead and re-write the thing.

If you want to preserve the record, I can re-post the comment in a new version. For the event, I've saved the comment as is in a doc--so go ahead and delete if you like.

I think I get it

Joshua — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:05:33 GMT

I think I get it even if you said not another word... but I would still like to hear the rest of what you have to say.

Oh Crap

Shanikka — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:49:37 GMT

This was intended to be a draft diary!!!!! It isn't finished. It's barely started.

Oh shit. Oh well. I won't delete it, Lilith, out of respect for your comment.............

Anyone who can figure out all that is in here, and why, gets the "cryptic decipherin'" award for 2008......

Finally. ;-)

lilith — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:38:33 GMT

As you know, Shanikka, many years ago, I realized that if there is any hope for this world, it will come from the children--and it was at that point I gave up on adults, and took my case (for change, for justice, for peace, etc.) directly to the chidren (and yes, I realize your daughter's no longer a child, but her use of "Ima" in this case says a lot).

It warms my heart greatly to hear just how many people testify to the same thing: I voted for Obama because my child/ren asked me to. (Gotta wonder what Chelsea's really thinking, eh!) ;-)

I Could Say

Shanikka — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:49:04 GMT

That there's a thin line between love and hate, but the Persuaders already told everyone that ;) Some random person even made a movie with that title LOL.

I appreciate your writing. Keep writing. Keep hearing, not just what I say - I'm just one woman. But what others say, too.

It's like fear of flying, this process of sort of cutting out the deep seated fears we all have about what it will mean if Barack Obama wins. I have my own fears but the oe thing I don't fear is a race war.

Ask your sister this: if there was going to be such a war, why hasn't it happened already? That sounds like a facetious question but it isn't. To ask the question is to answer it.

We all sink or swim, together. We may not always agree, we almost certainly won't always agree. We may sometimes even vehemently disagree, those of us from different "tribes", as it were. But in the end none of us can make it - not here in America, anyhow, without the other.

If you have not read Bernice Johnson Reagon's seminal piece on coalition, I highly recommend it to you. Here's a link:

Coalition Politics: Turning the Century

Peace and bright blessings to you.

(I'm not ignoring you, but until yesterday I was actively in trial mode. As you can see, my site has suffered as a result LOL.)

Very True, That

Shanikka — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 03:06:07 GMT

Very true indeed.

Something for everyone to love or hate ...

Meteor Blades — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:26:42 GMT

...just like every presidential contest in my memory. I wish we Photoshop candidates for real, take the best from all, and plug their passion for one or two issues into every issue that matters most to me. But if wishes were achievements, we'd be utopia.

Thanks for replying Shannika

Rosebuddear — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:47:49 GMT

I know you are tres busy, barely time to come in and write a front page post of your own re Black History Month (which I found very interesting and informative btw).

I'm still pretty torn myself. I have a feeling my vote is going to be up for grabs right up to Super Tuesday. I'm just watching to see if anything interesting happens between now and then.

My whole family is similarly torn. The one thing NONE of them will do is vote for McCain (who probably has the Republican nom sewed up). My very Republican family hahaha.

I went over to my parents' house this morning (yeah my infamous Dad haha), and he said "McCain really is a vindictive guy, isn't he?" He watched him in one of the debates and really didn't like what he saw.

And it cracks me up that people are saying that McCain would gain traction in Minnesota because Governor Pawlenty might be his VP pick. Haha, yeah, Governor Bridge Collapse is going to persuade Minnesotans to McCain's side. You know the ONLY reason he won re-election here the last time is because some Green/third party guy ran and divided up the Progressive vote that would have gone to Mike Hatch (one of the best Attorneys General this state ever had).

I still remember the local Minnesota Matters guy on the local Air America affiliate pleading with Hutchinson voters not to go there............and how many of them called in and got all self-righteous about Mike Hatch not being "pure" enough for them. Hahaha. Thanks for a second term of Governor Bridge Collapse and the Republican Convention in the Twin Cities, suckers.

Yeah, Hilly isn't half bad, sometimes. But it's still too close to call, for all of us. I know that whichever one of them gets it, they'll have my wholehearted support.

Regards,
Rose

Well,

Shanikka — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:43:07 GMT

With Edwards' departure Barack Obama became my candidate (they were neck and neck prior). So I watched yesterday's debate with interest and I have to say that I walked away wondering why I hadn't given Hillary Clinton more of a chance. She wasn't 1/2 bad.